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When did the Fantastic Four lose popularity?
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93 posts in this topic

On 1/10/2023 at 8:02 PM, Domo Arigato said:
On 1/10/2023 at 2:05 PM, kimik said:

Once@greggy was banned from using emoticons for pages upon pages of responses the time to get a new discussion past two pages grew exponentially longer.

He was actually banned from the entire forum once, because of something that another forum member did. :angel:

 

Are we still within the statute of limitations? :wishluck: 

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On 1/10/2023 at 4:27 PM, Lazyboy said:

Yeah, the top Marvel titles were well below the top titles, but so were the Disney titles. The Disney corporation may or may not have been doing well with their global licensing, but that didn't help sales of Gold Key's American-licensed Disney comics.

At the height of Batmania, ASM and FF were obviously not close to (the title) Batman's numbers, but they were fairly competitive with Batman's second title, Detective Comics.

It is kind of funny to see Tec > Batman for the Golden Age, but from Silver on Batman >>>>> Tec.

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On 1/10/2023 at 12:25 PM, thehumantorch said:

Certainly the Kirby era was the best and the BA books following Kirby were actually wonderful and underappreciated and there were some great characters introduced and many great covers.  Byrne's run was fun to read and there were other high moments in the run.  I finally quit buying the run after 25 years of picking it up off the stands or in my pull list because in my opinion it had become unreadable.  Too many family members and hangers on and incomprehensible storylines.

For the purpose of this argument, I'd suggest that FF started losing popularity late in the kirby run, let's call it issue #75.  Spider-man had become dominate and I just don't think many people were talking about FF anymore and new cool titles were on the horizon. 

The Waid/Weiringo and Hickman runs are worth reading.

Bottom line: A good writer can make a good story about any character or team book. Exhibit A is Daredevil.  I would argue that DD has had better runs of books than Spidey, FF, and X-Men.

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On 1/10/2023 at 3:08 PM, Krismusic said:

100 percent true. Also spidey and x men had their animated series in the 90s. That many loved and followed! 
Only thing I would say is that even the first ff4 movie wasn’t alright I didn’t like it much. 

I forgot about the animated X-Men, which was excellent. They did Apocalypse justice, unlike the live-action movie. :sick:

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On 1/10/2023 at 11:10 AM, Ken Aldred said:

Yup. I understand they’re a relic, but I still like them.

I’ll go off and read some Jack Cole Plastic Man comics now.

Can't go wrong with Plas! I have the 8 archives that DC published, and wish they'd go ahead and give us a Plas omni! Some of the best comix ever comicked!

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I always thought of them as Marvel’s First Family and it was with that dynamic that carried me through some of their lesser stories.  They actually had two related members, with Reed later officially joining as a husband/in-law and Ben really being as close as you can get to an uncle/brother.  It was almost as if they would be just content hanging around the house or garage or lab were it not for the incessant array of baddies that would have to be dealt with since, you know… who wants to plunk down 12¢ to read about family life.  I was on edge wondering if the brother would be hurt or if a husband would be lost in a tragedy (albeit sometimes of his own making).  They were essentially a household that really cared for each other and with an unchanging roster (at least until much later).  It wasn’t like The Avengers with their revolving door roll call of adults with their own private lives, or the X-Men with unrelated young people from all over the country trying to find some normalcy.     

As an aside and to be explored by others that would have better professional insight than myself:  It’s interesting to note in many comments here that writing and stories determine whether a book is popular – not an unreasonable thought, since who wants to waste time and money slogging through substandard junk.  Yet many other books have, as the title suggest, retained their popularity while the FF may have fallen aside.  I posit that it might not just be attributable to writing/stories as those other “popular” books have all gone through some cringe-worthy writing as well and come out no worse for wear, even before the movies escalated their fame.  Could it be that the ASM and X-Title books, concentrating more on rugged, individualistic characters (kind of re-imagining Hayek’s “freedom and spontaneous order” individual) resonated more with the changing times as society became more independent?  Many have written about an erosion of previously defined nuclear family values as the institution itself transforms and adapts to newer values reflecting independent societal structures and norms.  Is the FF seen as too archaic and out-of-touch to be relevant?  Shouldn't Johnny have scrammed and made his own way by now?  After surviving Dr. Doom and Galactus, will it instead be society's changing mores that do them in instead?   

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Waid and Wieringo made it fun. I love Waid’s writing and IMO Ringo’s art style matched the feel of the FF. 
 

Edit: My answer to OP is sometime in the 80s during the Byrne run. When I was a kid in the 90s it was Spider-Man, XMen, and XBooks selling all over the place. The FF were well remembered and respected but they weren’t the hot ticket books to have.

Edited by AmazingComics413
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On 1/11/2023 at 2:23 PM, F For Fake said:

Can't go wrong with Plas! I have the 8 archives that DC published, and wish they'd go ahead and give us a Plas omni! Some of the best comix ever comicked!

Absolutely.  Jack Cole was a comics genius. Far more inventive with Plas than Kirby was with Mr Fantastic.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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On 1/10/2023 at 9:18 AM, Ken Aldred said:

The 90s period by De Falco and Ryan was poorly received, so I suppose that might have been the start of it.

The DeFalco FFs were so bad that me, Mr. Completist, actually quit buying the title, perhaps the only time that has happened.

Of course, recently, I realized that my list of missing issues (#1 and #5) was actually incomplete, so I had to put the part of his run that I didn't buy on my list. (shrug)

But I got them from the 50¢ boxes! lol

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On 1/11/2023 at 7:10 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I forgot about the animated X-Men, which was excellent. They did Apocalypse justice, unlike the live-action movie. :sick:

Yeah the animated series apocalypse felt epic to me and the live action one wasn’t good. But I could be biased as I did watch the show as a kid lol

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On 1/12/2023 at 12:54 PM, Krismusic said:
On 1/11/2023 at 6:10 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I forgot about the animated X-Men, which was excellent. They did Apocalypse justice, unlike the live-action movie. :sick:

Yeah the animated series apocalypse felt epic to me and the live action one wasn’t good. But I could be biased as I did watch the show as a kid lol

lol true enough! I remember watching thinking he was unbeatable, which caused my brother who was 6 years younger to cry lol happened again with the power rangers several times. I point that out to how much the story involved us with the story, rivited!

YARN | Always like to keep my audience riveted. | Blazing Saddles (1974) |  Video gifs by quotes | f02b1b7e | 紗

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On 1/12/2023 at 11:29 AM, Larryw7 said:

The FF is still my favorite Marvel team. I know the quality has been lacking for awhile, but there's nothing better in the MCU(with the exception of Ditko Spidey) than the Kirby/Lee issues of the FF.  

For me, they’re up there with The X-Men and Avengers. All the team books have had peaks and troughs in quality, not just the FF.

I first read all of them during the same period in the 70s when they were being reprinted by Marvel U.K.

Exciting times.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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